What Chico has: a multimillion-dollar concrete plaza that is unusable for hardly anyone except the street people; an expensive bike trail complete with new fences, gates and steps for the residential lots and extensive lighting that goes from one end of Chico to the other and is used minimally; hundreds of acres of vacant land purchased with public funds and fenced off from the public; and a multimillion-dollar redirection of traffic in downtown with removal of parking spaces so bicycles have a lane to ride in when they don’t shop downtown.

The City Council knew they were spending cash reserves and didn’t care. Stating “they didn’t know,” or as one former member stated, “That’s what the reserve is for — to spend,” is unacceptable and arrogant. It is the City Council’s fiduciary responsibility to know and manage the budget for the benefit of all Chico citizens.

Now we are facing extreme cuts to police, cuts to services, tax increases and we are supposed to swallow these while retaining the same City Council that greatly contributed to our current financial condition and feel totally justified in all their actions. Thank goodness for Mark Sorensen and Sean Morgan, who finally got elected to the council to start bringing attention to the spendthrift ways of the council.

For the citizens who automatically vote for incumbents, it’s time to change.